Our Own World

Chapter Twenty-Eight - I Need a Long Nap

We arrived at the church just in time for the practice before the service. We went through the song once and we sounded great. I am so excited to do this with Ace. It's been my dream to sing more with Ace and things like this help our confidence. I'll admit, my very first performance in front of people, I was not confident at all. With the help of practice, Ace and most importantly, God, I have been building my confidence and soon, hopefully, I can say confidently that I am not nervous whatsoever. I know God is my strength when I am afraid. He is the one I can turn to whenever I am struggling with school, confidence or I am nervous.

"Do you feel ready?" Ace asked me as we finished up our practice.

"Yes, I feel ready." I smiled at Ace. "I think I'm going to be okay. I'll be praying for you."

"Thank you, I'll pray for you too of course."

We both went to the seats and prayed for a little while until the sanctuary started getting fuller and people started taking their places. Ace and I sat in our regular spots, over with the youth. We would be performing after the worship team.

"You look so nice Camilla!" Dakota smiled, hugging me.

"Thank you," I hugged her back.

"Wow, Camilla, you look really nice." Brett commented.

I blushed. "Thank you,"

"Hey, back off Brett, she's mine." Ace joked, putting his arm around me. I smiled at him, smacking his arm.

"He was just being nice."

"Flirting with you is 'being nice'? I know Brett, and that was not him 'being nice'." Ace muttered.

"Whatever, Ace. Don't get jealous." I laughed.

After the worship team sung a couple of songs, they called Ace and me up to the stage.

"Today, we have a couple special teenagers who have decided to sing for us today. Come on up, Ace and Camilla." Our pastor, Chris, introduced us.

"Thanks Chris," Ace said. "Here today, my girlfriend and I stand in front of you to sing for God. We don't want to do this for ourselves, as much fun as we have, this is all for God. We want to give all the glory to God. We'll be singing Living Hope today. If you'd like to just pray and reflect at this time, you are welcome. You can sing along as well if you know the words. We encourage you to just listen to the words and hopefully this song speaks to you the way it speaks to us." Ace said. "Ready Cam?" Ace whispered.

"Yes," I smiled.

Ace started playing the guitar and I stood there, as Ace started singing, trying to remember my cue to come in.

I looked out the congregation and Dakota was smiling.

I'm so glad Ace and I have this opportunity to do this. It's not about us, it's about God. I made sure Luke was videotaping the whole thing.

We concluded the song and everyone stood up and clapped.

"I'm so proud of you Camilla, you don't even know." He whispered in my ear as we hugged.

"I'm proud of you Ace." I said back.

After the service, we went outside. We took photos and when I got home I looked on Instagram and Ace had already posted a picture that someone took of us. It was a picture of us, I was looking at the sky and Ace was looking at me. The caption said, "She's looking into the sky, I'm looking at my whole world."

I actually screamed when I saw the picture. There were a bunch of comments from our peers from youth. I gushed at his caption and my heart skipped a beat when I saw his name on my phone that was ringing.